Reminder of Observation Opportunities & Other Items
Opportunities to Observe – Reminder
Last month, I was in touch with you to offer an opportunity to observe voting opportunities that do not take place during the standard hours of Voting Week. Our goal at Elections Saskatchewan is to be transparent in a manner consistent with electoral best practice that ensures everyone in your political party understands and trusts Saskatchewan’s electoral processes. For more information and a few examples of what we can make available to you, please refer back to the Communique I sent to you on Monday, July 29.
Again, if you could let me know what processes you are interested in observing or in better understanding, please contact me and I will make arrangements with my team to facilitate this.
Ministry of Highways – Road Signs
The Ministry of Highways has a policy and guidance related to the placement of election signs. I have attached their policy and summary document to this Communique but it can also be found online here: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/residents/transportation/highways/putting-up-road-signs/election-signs.
Please ensure this information is shared with candidates and their campaigns.
Financial Agent Authorization Statement
In December 2022, legislative amendments changed the title of the person responsible for preparing and filing a candidate’s election expense return from “business manager” to “financial agent.” This change was designed to better reflect the responsibilities of this position and ensure that those who were named to this role understood what would be required of them.
Section 215 of The Election Act, 1996 requires all advertising that promotes the candidacy of a particular person to contain an authorization statement that the advertisement is “authorized by the financial agent for [name of the candidate to which the advertisement relates]” or, “authorized by the financial agent for the candidate.” Previously, of course, this referred to a “business manager” in place of “financial agent.”
In June 2023, I released a Directive clarifying a transition period during which existing materials containing an authorization tag referring to a “business manager” could be used. This transition period does not apply to the upcoming general election and all candidate advertising material used in the upcoming election must include an authorization statement referring to a financial agent to be compliant with the law. A copy of the relevant Directive is attached for your information.
Elections Saskatchewan – Training and Other Activities
As key stakeholders, I want to ensure you are aware of what my team at Elections Saskatchewan is working on and preparing for.
The first two weeks of September will be very busy ones as we will gather our Returning Officers, Election Clerks and their Office Coordinators for “event” training in Regina (all constituencies using e-poll books) from September 4 to 6 and Saskatoon (all constituencies not using e-poll books) from September 10 to 12. These events, our last major training sessions before the general election, will see our Field Leadership Team (FLT) learning about things such as the voting opportunities they must administer, how to prepare their offices for activities like results reporting and other key elements of their responsibilities. They are significant undertakings but by the time we are finished we will have an FLT ready to administer elections in every constituency in the province.
We will begin accepting applications from election workers in early September. While we will require fewer election workers than we have in past events, we will still require thousands of people in many different communities and finding them can be a challenge. I expect that you will see our advertisements for worker recruitment throughout the month of September.
The coming weeks will be very busy ones for my team as I know they will be for yours. Once September begins, I expect to be in much more frequent contact with you and it will be extremely important that you read these Communiques and that you share them with your teams. If you have questions about anything that we are doing, please be in touch and we will gladly answer any questions you have.
I look forward to working with you in the coming months as we administer the 30th general election in the history of this province!
Dr. Michael Boda
Chief Electoral Officer
Province of Saskatchewan